My biggest challenge in my professional/creative life is constraint. I have many things I love doing, many things (I choose to think) I’m talented at, many pursuits through which I want to offer value to the world in my lifetime (I’m 38 now).

One of these pursuits is writing a novel (a childhood dream of mine), but I also run a business that’s doing well, and I have set an impossible goal of generating 100K in my budding coaching business in 2018.

I was just doing my thought download of the day around that, and the fact that I would need laser focus to achieve this impossible goal, and not pursue additional projects/ideas. I’m resisting the thought of setting the novel aside to concentrate on that goal, and when I questioned that resistance, the thought that came up was:

“I don’t want to die without having written a novel.”

It made me laugh out loud because it sounds so dramatic, and I’m wondering if it is a poisonous thought. It sounds like an important thought, but in truth it’s generating in me a feeling of fear, urgency, and smallness (as in “if I don’t write a novel my life will have been a waste, I will have failed at my one purpose, I will have let myself down”).

I’d love to get your guidance on this. Is this a poisonous thought? Is it a thought/feeling to welcome and do something with? How would you suggest I move forward with this?

Thank you!

Clotilde in Paris.